The Senate confirmed Betsy DeVos as education secretary on Tuesday after Vice President Pence cast the tiebreaking vote. The HELP committee's Democrats, upset that they were denied the opportunity to ask DeVos more questions about her knowledge and intentions, used the time they did have to ask hard-hitting questions that DeVos seemed unprepared to answer. They'll keep speaking until 9 tomorrow morning, when a final vote to confirm Betsy DeVos's nomination is scheduled. Susan Collins of ME and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who announced they would vote against her last week.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, urging her confirmation, said it was time to "end the unprecedented delay by Democrats" on the Cabinet nominations by Mr Trump, who took office on January 20.

Tie-breaking votes by vice presidents are relatively rare: the last such vote was cast in 2008 by Richard Cheney, on a budget-related issue.

Her lack of experience in public education led to some rocky moments at her confirmation hearing. DeVos has said she would divest herself from those organizations.

The aim of a marathon floor debate is to raise all the issues and concerns about DeVos, a major Republican donor from MI.

DeVos, a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party, never attended public school or worked in the public school system.

"Millions of families share Secretary DeVos's vision for disrupting a failed status quo that has denied too many children access to a quality education", Bush said today. Protests broke out as DeVos' nomination neared success, with education activists and teacher's unions lobbying hard against her appointment.

On her confirmation hearing, a spokesman for the group Friends of Betsy DeVos said she "was not as articulate as she could have been".

Donnelly spoke on the Senate floor Monday evening, reading letters from IN constituents who opposed DeVos.

Ms DeVos has been an advocate of charter schools, which operate independently of school districts and frequently are run by corporations.

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